The devastation is back, and so is the joy. After a long pandemic break, the musicians are touring again. As the cast reconnects with fans, we explore the relief and anxiety found in this homecoming
As the indie music fraternity begins to see a slow but steady pandemic revival, artists begin to do what they miss most over the past two years: board a plane and fly to a city, then Seconds, then others, waiting to happen, each time struck with a different kind of energy from a different kind of music-loving audience.
While some bands have kicked off on multi-city tours – like Mumbai-based Straight Death’s eight-city calendar from Jaipur to Bengaluru and North to Chandigarh – others are out on a mix of public, private and corporate gigs.
For example, Bengaluru-based Swarathama is in its . giving pause ten more minutes Album tours at Delhi’s Mic Drop and Bengaluru’s Fandom at Gillies Redefined, along with a few corporate shows and even podcast guest sessions. Then they launch the long-awaited album: The F16s of Chennai Is it time to eat the rich now? Amidst the Delhi crowd at the mic drop, where a fan lets frontman Josh Fernandes clean his head with a razor on stage. The devastation is back, and so is the joy.
Josh says, “The show’s absolute famine due to the pandemic made me realize how much I am missed and on a stage so easy to take the show – for many actors I would believe – is a thing of the past.” “My intensity and passion only works to a peak level on the show, and it’s nice to be playing the man again.”
It was not just a matter of sitting back and waiting for things to return to normal. Sameer Sethi, co-founder of Chennai-based music platform Circle of Love, likens the process of resurgence to the habit of standing on one’s own feet after nearly two years of being tied to a chair. Although the Circle of Love festival had an impressive lineup of musicians from Chennai two weeks ago, some artists were brought in from Mumbai, such as Ambika Nayak aka Kayan.
“There were concerns, and then some,” he lists, “first, everyone now thinks twice before traveling, they’ll only go out when it’s important. Secondly, the cast needs to be at least a day before. They have to disembark, and they must be given a day before take-off to trace RT-PCR tests and other formalities. Keeping the cast in the city for more than a day would have automatically made the whole process more expensive. Third, the setup at the venue takes longer as there are more precautions. You can’t expect physical distance from the crowd at the bar while the music is playing, so we have to at least make sure that everyone who enters The person should be double vaccinated.
In short, as Sameer puts it, the days of “wandering” when a musician could pack up and hop from city to city at a moment’s notice no longer exist.
For Swarathma, the process is somewhat easier as the band handles its own travel and logistics. Bassist Jishnu Dasgupta, who serves as Swarthma’s manager, admitted that the recent Delhi show brought back some of the adrenaline of the old flight-hopping, city-hopping days.
offline wonder
“There are some new songs that we never played in front of an audience, like ‘Mushkil Mein Jeena’ and ‘Dus Minute Aur’. The other is a naturally live song, and we were waiting to play it,” says Jishnu. Huh. Experiencing the live feedback was a pleasure, and a lesson too.
Kayan and Jabbe at the Circle of Love Fest in Radio Room, Chennai in October 2021. photo Credit: special arrangement
Frontman Vasu Dixit explains, “We didn’t know where they would fall on a set list; After which song will they stream, between 13 and 15 which we play in sets of 90 minutes. ‘Ten Minutes More’ is high-energy; In a private show, we had it after one of our old fast songs: ‘Rah-e-fakira’. While playing we felt it felt like a drop in energy; It should have come earlier, not later. These are things that we can understand only after playing a couple of shows.”
Another surprising discovery for the band, was its fan base. Instagram live and lockdown streaming data shows that unexpected cities like Kolkata not only have ardent fans, but also that the fans are smaller than ever. “So we have to reinvent the way we plan our travels,” says Jishnu, “now our biggest fan demographic is 18 to 24; We have to remember that we are not just a band that started playing decades ago. We too, like any musician, are discovering something new every day. ,
However, her longtime fan Tvesha Ghosh is eagerly waiting to return to her hometown Bengaluru this month. “The swaratma has sincerity to his music, a Scent of the Earth’s clay“(The smell of the earth) vibe. And the combined energy of a gig is so awesome, where you get the excitement from the musicians as well as the people around you. I would have enjoyed music like this more than listening alone Am.”
For Chennai’s Srikanth Natarajan, it was more than just seeing actors he hadn’t seen in a long time. The Optical Asylum, held at Mount Road Social in October, featured not only visual artists but also DJs like Delhi’s Anushka James and Kochi’s Parimal Shays, and Srikkanth had a great memory of normalcy. “I’m one of those people who needs live music, I went into a meltdown in their absence,” he says.
Srikanth, who is popularly known for supporting and supporting the city’s indie scene through his Instagram page @theChennaiscene, says, “The feeling of connecting with an artist is like nothing else when they perform live. In addition, there are other people – audience members – whom you only meet at such gigs, and socialize based on that shared interest or shared love for that one musician. It was nice to join again. ,
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